Rod's Return
by Eternal Density
Summary: A variation on Brain Storm. Where was all the heat being sent to? References to McKay and Mrs. Miller. Rod isn't the only visitor... and alternate universes are stranger than anyone expected.
1. Rod

Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate Atlantis or earn money from this!

Spoilers: McKay and Mrs. Miller, and Brain Storm.

"A regular bridge should draw the same amount of energy from the heat-sink at all times. This one is fluctuating greatly…" Rodney's voice trailed off as an idea hit him. "Maybe we can use that. Wait for it to peak, then overload it and crash."

"That's a good idea," Malcolm Tunney agreed.

"Yeah, I thought you'd like it, what with it being my idea and…" He was interrupted by a burst of light.

"We're experiencing a power surge! What the… something seems to have been sent from the other side of the bridge." the computer technician reported.

Malcolm looked confused. "The other side? But that's… actually, I have no idea what's on the other side."

"Potentially, another universe similar to our own," Rodney suggested.

"The odds of that happening are astronomically…"

"It's possible," Rodney declared.

"What makes you think…"

"Excuse me, who's in charge of this project?" a familiar voice asked from the other side of the room. Everyone turned to see a man with a black leather jacket, spiked hair, and familiar face. "Mal, I should have figured you'd be behind this."

Malcom blinked at the newcomer. "Who the…"

At the same time, Rodney's mouth dropped open. "Rod?"


	2. Mal and Professor Nye

Rodney's mouth dropped open. "Rod?"

The newcomer nodded. "That's my name. I guess that makes you a 'Rodney'?"

"Yeah, Rodney. Are you the same one who, well, dropped in before?" Rodney asked.

"There's no way of knowing for certain whether our precise realities were connected in the past, but this isn't the first time I've had to do this," Rod replied. "First with the exotic particles, now with the heat. Did you people ever consider that realities are separate for a reason?"

"What exactly is going on here?" Tunney wondered.

"Ah yes, Mal. I assume you had the bright idea of using _his _work to pump excess heat out of this reality, while assuming the chance of that reality - my reality - not taking kindly to the excess heat to be small enough it wasn't worth thinking about?"

"Uh... I suppose you could put it that way. So, you're the Rodney McKay of another reality? And you came here to tell us to turn off the heat?"

"Precisely."

"And you've done this before?"

"After a fashion."

"How did you..."

"I can't get into that, Mal."

"Why do you keep calling me 'Mal'?"

"Well, the you in my reality..."

"This one doesn't go by 'Mal' any more than I go by 'Rod'," Rodney interrupted.

"Chill, Rodney, it's not a big deal," Rod replied.

"Bad choice of words there," Jennifer put in, finally coming to terms with the situation. "We're trying to prevent that."

Rod grinned. "Oh, hi Jen." Rodney coughed pointedly. "...nifer," Rod quickly added. "How unsurprising to see you here. What were you saying about preventing chilling?"

Rodney quickly explained. "'Genius' over here ignored all my warnings about the instability of interdimensional bridges, so now we're stuck with a heatsink we can't shut off."

"You can't?"

Having heard enough of Rodney's derogatory comments, Tunney took over the explaining and gave Rod an _actual _quick explanation. He had just finished explaining why the force field couldn't be shut off when Bill Nye ran in, followed by a security guard. "Quick, a man just got spontaneously frozen!" Nye exclaimed.

"He what?" Kramer asked, glad for something to distract him from the two McKays. He was still a little confused about what was actually going on.

"Hang on, since when were there two McKays?" Nye asked, much to Kramer's chagrin.

Jennifer answered this, as the McKays and Tunney had ignored Nye's entrance and were still talking among themselves. "The new one is from the other reality. Where we're sending the heat. What did you say about a frozen man? I'm a doctor..."

"He's in the main hall. You'd better hurry."

"Come on, guys," called Jennifer when she realised the other men weren't following.

"What's up?" Rodney asked.

"A man was frozen. Spontaneously."

"Hey, it's Professor Nye!" Rod exclaimed

"Professor?"

"Never mind that, we need to get out there!" Jennifer protested.

"Right." Rod glanced at Tunney as they left the control room. "Frozen people? How do you suppose that happened?"

"That's what I was about to ask!" Rodney interrupted.

"Hmm. You probably were. Well, Mal? Malcolm, I mean."

"Uh... let's wait until we see what's happened."

-

As Jennifer examined the unfortunate man and talked to herself about body temperature and tissue damage, the others speculated on the cause. "Oh, so when the bridge makes a sudden demand on the heat-sink…"

"The heat-sink reacts by drawing power from a single localized place inside the containment field," Rodney McKay finished Tunney's sentence.

"And that beam would freeze anything in its path," Tunney realised. "Oh…I did not see this coming."

"It's…freeze-lightning," labeled the two McKays in unison.

"Freeze lightning? Ooh, I like that."

"Well, you can't have it. It's mine. It's…copywritten," said Rodney defensively.

"Ours. _We _thought of it first," Rod amended.

Nye shook his head at that. "There are just two people entitled to refer to themselves as 'we'; one is the editor and the other is the fellow with a tapeworm."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Rodney wondered, annoyed. Meanwhile, Rod muttered, "It's not the worms calling themselves 'we' that are the the problem so much as the _snakes_." Fortunately no one was paying attention, though several of the guests were starting to wonder why there was a second man who looked like Rodney McKay but wasn't in formal attire.

Before the conversation could get any further out of hand, Jennifer walked over from her examination of the frozen man. "How's he doing?" the McKays asked.

The conversation continued, but Tunney found it difficult to focus on the seriousness of the situation, due to the constant doubling of the McKays' speech.

-

To be continued!


	3. Unlivably Cold

_A little later..._

"Looks like it's up to you and me. Two of you and me," said Malcolm Tunney.

"Yeah, we better get back to the control room." "Figure this out ourselves," Rod and Rodney agreed.

"Wait! W-w-wait, wait. Isn't there like a room full of geniuses out there?" Jennifer reminded.

Malcolm and Rodney both snickered. "That's debatable."

"That's correct!" said Rod at the same moment. The three eyed one another uncomfortably. "What? We need all the help we can get!"

"If that freeze lightning thing happens again, people could die," added Jennifer.

"She's right, it would be stupid to ignore the available brainpower."

"They'll slow me down!"

"What, you can't work with others? Just my luck," Rod complained.

"Yes, what happened to that humble thing we were going to try today?" Jennifer questioned.

"How come you're taking his side? He's me! Almost, sort of."

"Perhaps you could learn a thing or two from him," Jennifer chided.

Malcolm looked amused. "Whoever said that two heads are better than one forgot to mention that the heads need to belong to different people."

The McKays blinked. "What's that supposed to mean?"

-

_A little later, in the reception area..._

"Attention guests. I'm sure you have noticed that it has become rather... chilly. Due to an unforeseen instability in the matter bridge..."

Rodney coughed loudly.

"Due to an instability I did not anticipate, we are as of yet unable to stop the heat transfer. Also, because of the irregular power pull from the bridge, the demand on the heat sink is fluctuating. The result is what I am calling 'freeze lightning'."

Rodney muttered under his breath, and Rod shushed him.

"It is the sudden and immediate transfer of heat from a localized area, and it is potentially very lethal," Malcolm continued.

"Look, we need to figure out how to collapse the matter bridge, stop it from drawing energy from the heat-sink, otherwise it's going to get unlivably cold in here," Rodney explained.

"And, all the heat is being shunted from this reality to an alternate reality, which is populated by people just like yourselves who really don't want the excess heat," Rod added.

The audience murmured. "There's two of them?" questioned the deep voice of Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

"Double the trouble," Bill Nye appended.

"Yes, yes there is. I have travelled through the matter bridge to this reality in order to ask you to stop. And, it seems, to assist you in achieving that."

"And we need all of you to help as much as possible," Malcolm added, trying to settle the restless audience whose attention was diverted to the alternate reality issue.

Tyson still had questions on the alternate issue. "You're Rodney McKay from another reality? I find that hard to believe."

"Hello, he looks exactly like me - apart from the jacket - and how do you expect he got in here?"

"Go easy on the belligerence, Rodney," said Rod. "But yes, I'm Doctor Rod McKay, and I came from another reality. By the way, it's great to see you, Ty. Great work keeping Pluto's status as a planet."

"What did you just..."

"Ahem," Rodney interrupted. "There are obviously several differences between realities. That's why they're called alternate. But that's not the main issue here. We need to shut down the bridge. Preferably after he leaves, that is."

"Would smashing it into pieces work?" suggested Bill Nye.

"No, it wouldn't. Nice try though," Rod replied.

"Why not?" Nye wondered.

"Because that could create a tear in our space-time?" Rodney slowly enunciated.

"Would shutting down the containment field help? At least we would stop freezing so quickly," a female scientist suggested.

Malcolm shook his head. "Well, for one thing, it's tied into the basic function of the matter bridge, so we can't just shut it off."

"And even if we could, it houses so much cool air now that it would create a…sudden massive cold front as soon as it drops. I mean, we're talking high-speed winds, tornados, an instant mega-storm," Rodney added.

Malcolm added even more bad news. "Not to mention the fact that the heat-sink draw heat not just from this facility, but from the entire planet. We cannot allow that to happen."

"And, all that heat would cook my Earth," Rod finished. He shook his head and complained, "This is so typical. Couldn't you people have waited another week before activating this? It's not that I particularly mind helping but you have the worst timing."

"Timing? What do you mean?" Rodney questioned.

"I'm supposed to be in the middle of my honeymoon."

-

Edit: somehow some spelling mistakes snuck through. Plus I fixed up an out-of-place question by adding a couple of extra lines of dialog about smashing up the bridge-generating-thing.


	4. Duet

Chapter 4 - Duet

"I'm supposed to be in the middle of my honeymoon," Rod replied.

Rodney gaped. "Honeymoon? You're married?"

"Hence the honeymoon, Einstein."

Jennifer couldn't help a slight eye roll. "Why do people use Einstein as an insult?"

"To someone of _my_ intelligence…" Rodney began.

"You mean _our_ intelligence," Rod reminded him. "But I wouldn't be so pretentious, and you don't have grounds to be."

"Hey, we're in danger of freezing, remember? Now is not the time," Jennifer chided.

"But... he's married!"

"And you'll never be if w-you freeze!"

"Right, right, let's get this show on the road," Rodney finally agreed.

-

"It's a nice idea, Bill, but you're coming at it from the wrong angle," Rod appraised after Nye had been given a chance to explain his math. "You've got to understand that Rodney and I have a lot more experience with this sort of thing."

Nye found this disconcerting. "You both do this reality hopping thing often?"

Rodney shook his head. "No, no, only he has, and this is only the second time. It is only the second time, right?"

Rod just nodded.

Bill Nye still seemed concerned. "You'd better not have tried targeting distant parts of our own space-time with this bridge. We can't send living things to another planet. That might screw it up!"

"No, we haven't and we never intend to try," Rodney answered truthfully.

"I still don't understand how… 'Rod' could have travelled through the bridge safely," Malcolm wondered.

"That's a secret, and not relevant," Rod quickly replied. "We need to collapse the bridge, but overloading it with the heatsink would kill us all before it could work."

"Are you sure?" Rodney queried.

"I did the math, while you were all working on other ideas."

"Then we're trapped here!" Nye lamented.

"There has to be another way," Rodney assured him.

"Excuse me," a guard interrupted. "Kramer called for you to come to the lab."

"Great, now what's gone wrong?" Rodney complained.

"Perhaps we should go and see rather than stand here and speculate," Rod suggested.

"Huh. I was just about to say the same… oh, never mind," Rodney began to say, but stopped when he saw the looks directed at him by certain other scientists.

-

"So to summarise, the communications systems have failed, which is a bad thing, and the containment field is failing, which is also a bad thing," Rod summed up.

"It is? Doesn't that mean we could escape?" Jennifer wondered.

"We might get out of the building, but we wouldn't escape the massive vortex storm caused by the icy air meeting the warm desert air," Malcolm Tunney reminded everyone.

"And the storm would block any cell phone transmission," Rodney added.

"We can ride out the storm," Kramer suggested.

Rod quickly shot down that idea. "The storm is fed by the heat-sink, which we can't shut down."

"He means the storm won't ever stop," Rodney clarified.

"Ah, but there is a window of opportunity," Rod told the others. "The containment field should be weak enough to let a cell signal through before it collapses completely."

"Why didn't I think of that?" Rodney protested.

Malcolm ignored him. "I think you're right!" He pulled up a schematic on a tablet computer and found the best place to try. "I'd better get going, it's a bit of a run from here."

Jennifer stopped him. "Wait, I'll go. You're needed here."

Malcolm shook his head. "I…"

"Come on," Jennifer insisted. She knew she was right.

"Alright, fine." He handed over the device and returned to his colleagues/guests.

"I'll radio when I get though," she promised, picking up a radio as she headed for the door

"Good luck," the worried Rodney wished her.

"You too." She hurried on her way.

"She seems like a very capable…"

"Focus, Mal," Rod interrupted, following his habit of shortening everyone's name.

"Right, so, we've established that dialling up the heat-sink is too dangerous," Bill Nye continued. "What else can we try?"

"Power, power…" Rodney mused. "The power to hold the bridge open is coming from the heat-sink, right?"

"Right," Malcolm confirmed. "It uses a small percentage of the energy being transferred to stabilise itself, so it's self sustaining."

"But it's limited, right? No matter the load, the heat-sink can only draw so much energy."

"Yes, and as Rod calculated for us, it's not enough to overload the bridge quickly enough for us to survive the freeze lightning."

"You know, 'freeze lightning' is a pretty bad name," Nye commented.

"Don't look at me, they thought of it," Malcolm replied, gesturing to the two McKays.

Rod looked a little annoyed, and Rodney was about to glare, but instead he used the silence to continue his idea before someone stole it. "We can't overload the bridge, but we could try to starve the generator of the energy it needs to hold the bridge open."

"Stall it out, you mean?" Rod asked.

"Exactly."

Malcolm shook his head. "That would take an insane amount of power! Technically it's possible, but the heat-sink could never do it."

"No, but it's not the only thing that uses power."

"Of course, we open a second bridge!" Rod exclaimed.

Rodney nodded. "That's where I was heading."

"Isn't one bridge enough trouble?"

Rodney shook his head. "The device is rigged to power a single bridge. If we try creating a second one…"

"It overwhelms the system and fails!" Malcolm realised.

"Rodney, can you hear me?" everyone heard through the radio.

Rodney grabbed it and replied. "I'm here. What's happening, Jennifer?"

"I can't get through. I almost did, but the signal dropped out too soon."

"Keep trying, it should work eventually."

"I'd love to… but the phone is a little soaked. I kind of slipped on some ice and dropped it."

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, just a bit cold. The jacket's helping, thanks."

"Any time. Uh, you should get back here."

"I'm already on the way. Any luck shutting that thing down?"

"I, uh, we've come up with a workable plan. We're just about to make it work."

"That's great! But be careful."

"You too." Rodney set the radio down. "Let's do this!"

Rod held up a hand. "There's one slight problem."

"Oh? Now what?"

"Not what, who. Me. I need to get back to my reality before you shut the bridge down."

"And how do you plan to do that?"

"The same way I did before," Rod admitted.

"In case you hadn't noticed, we're out of radio contact with the outside world."

"If we wait for the field to weaken further, then we might be able to contact…"

"No, the risk is too high. We'll shut it down and sort you out later."

"Can you guarantee that?"

"Uh, I'm sure we'll find a way," Rodney tried to assure his counterpart. "If we reconfigure the system not to dump any heat in your reality, and fix it so we can shut it off, we should be able to…"

"I'm reading another power surge!" Malcolm interrupted.

"Another?" Rod echoed.

"The same thing happened just before you arrived."

Rodney gasped. "You mean…"

Malcolm pointed at Rod. "Someone else has come from his reality."

"Everybody freeze!" commanded a familiar voice.

"We're already doing that," Bill Nye answered. "Whoa!" He hadn't expected to see a woman wearing a tight black outfit, combat boots, and armed with an assault rifle.

"Jen! This must be plan B," Rod greeted her.

"Actually it's plan C, as in C4," Jen replied with a wide grin. "Colonel Carter beefed up the transmitters in the homing beacons so we can be extracted from the other side on my signal."

"C4?! You can't do that!" Rodney protested.

"Can, and have. Everyone, move away from Doctor Rod. I'd prefer not to shoot anyone, but I will if you make me," Jen warned.

"What did you just call him?" Rodney asked.

"This really isn't necessary, Lieutenant. We've found a way to shut down the bridge without explosives," Rod said as Rodney was finishing.

"That's not good enough. It's been decided at the highest level that we can't risk this happening again," Jen replied.

"What's going on?" asked Jennifer as she walked back into the lab from her trip to the other side of the facility. She immediately found herself staring past a lethal weapon into her own face.

"You!" yelled Jen, whose face had turned white, and not from the cold. "You're supposed to be dead! But this time, I'll make sure of it!" she shrieked.

-

Notes:

Sorry about the long wait! I kinda got busy with other stuff. Actually, I wrote a bit over three quarters of this just now.

I hope you like the length. And I had lots of new ideas towards the end of it to make it more different from the original.

Again, I've incorporated an actual Bill Nye quote. And the title has a double meaning which won't be apparent until the next chapter.


	5. Toast

Chapter 5 - Toast

Jennifer stepped back in shock. Her mouth gaped open before she regained control over her jaw. "You... you're me. And you're pointing a gun at me. Why?" she asked in a shaky voice.

"You can't fool me, Ashkelon."

"Huh?"

"What exactly is going on here?" Rodney demanded. "Put the gun down, 'Jen', or 'Lieutenant' or whoever you are."

"I don't think so," Jen replied. She turned her attention back to Jennifer. "What are you planning here, Ashkelon? You were trying to destroy my universe, and sabotaging Doctor Rod's attempts to stop you. Well, that ends now."

"I don't know what you're talking about! I'm Doctor Jennifer Keller. Who's Ashkelon?" Jennifer wondered.

Jen looked confused. "You're a doctor?"

"Medical. Chief medical officer of... you-know-where. You're a lieutenant?"

"Wait, she's CMO in this reality? Then why is she at this meeting?" Rod asked.

"I invited her," Rodney stated. "Why did you think she was here?"

"I thought she must be a bodyguard, undercover," Rod explained.

"This is all a big misunderstanding," Rodney began. "I'm sure we can straighten it out if we explain ourselves. First, who is this Ashkelon?"

Rod shot Jen a worried look. "She's another version of Jennifer Keller, who invaded our reality several months ago."

"Okay, so why call her Ashkelon?" Rodney asked.

"She had... snake problems."

"Oh," Rodney said softly.

Jennifer blanched. "You mean she was a... that's terrible!"

Jen just nodded. "She impersonated me, and... caused me a lot of pain. We killed her before she could get away, but... I'm sure there are others, in other realities. I don't know whether you are, or not... but I don't want to take any chances!"

"Lieutenant! None of this is necessary! They're all on our side, and they'll shut down the bridge as soon as we return to our home reality," Rod reassured her. "The programming's nearly finished. Come on!"

Jen shook her head. "No. I can't leave a potential threat un-dealt with," she declared.

Realising her time was up, Jennifer whirled into action, forcing the gun to the ground and pushing Jen away to keep her away from the weapon. Jen immediately struck back. Several blows later, Jennifer decided that Jen too must have had sparring lessons with Ronon.

"Lieutenant, let her go!" Rod demanded.

"She... attacked... me!" Jen grunted between blows.

"You were about to shoot her!" Rodney protested."

"What on Earth - or Earths - is going on?" demanded the thoroughly confused Kramer.

"Break it up, ladies!" Malcolm shouted, to no avail. The noise was making it hard to concentrate on reconfiguring the system for two concurrent time-space bridges.

"Niel is never gonna believe this," Bill Nye muttered. "But I think I prefer the first one."

"Stop fighting, Jen, she was just defending herself," Rod tried. "We've got to get out of here so they can close the bridge."

"I've got... two and a half... minutes," came Jen's answer amid lunges at her double.

The McKays looked at each other in sudden horror. "You put the C4 on a timer!" they simultaneously realised.

"Motion sensors too," Jen huffed as she ducked a high kick from Jennifer. "You can't... disarm. I have the... remote."

She'd barely gotten the words out when Rodney threw himself into the fight. Rod looked on helplessly, unsure of who to help. The others in the room weren't going to go near the fight, since there was a loaded gun lying nearby and they still didn't follow what was happening. "We've got to get the remote from her! To disarm the explosives on the bridge generator," Rodney explained helpfully as he struggled. For a moment he thought they had her subdued, but then she shook herself loose and vanished in a flash of white light.

"What was _that_?" Bill Nye exclaimed. Others in the room repeated the sentiment.

"She's returned to her reality," Rodney explained. "Jennifer, are you alright?"

"I'm a bit banged up," Jennifer replied, sounding a bit winded. "Thanks Rodney, I couldn't hold her off much longer. Why'd she leave? I thought she wanted to..."

"Yes. But she was more concerned about preventing us from stopping the... the C4! We can't disarm it! And if we don't shut down the bridge, it'll most likely take out the whole facility with it!"

"Maybe I can find a way to disarm..." Rod began to offer.

Rodney shook his head. "Nonononononono, you've got to get out of here so Malcolm can shut down the bridge. You need to get back to your honeymoon with... who did you marry?"

"Laura Cadman."

"What?! You married Lieutanant Cadman?"

"No, she's a doctor. Chief medical officer, actually. And she tap dances."

"The one here is a demolitions expert... but still with the tap dancing. How did you two get together?"

"Guys, we've got less than a minute until..." Jennifer tried to remind them, but they didn't notice.

"It started when I tried to push her out of the way of a culling beam and instead I ended up trapped in her head, thanks to Zelenka."

"Really? That's so unfair! I had Cadman stuck in _my_ body!"

"Hey! McKays! I'm ready to open the second bridge!" Malcolm called.

"Oh, right. Has anyone seen my..."

Jennifer dropped a tiny cylindrical device into Rod's hand. "Here, 'Jen' dropped it."

"Thanks. Here's hoping that this never happens again." He pressed the button on the beacon and vanished in a brilliant white flash.

"Right, now as soon as someone checks my math, we can..."

"What do you think I've been doing! We've got less than twenty seconds before the bomb goes off. Just do it!" Nye loudly encouraged.

Malcolm initialised the startup sequence. "It's drawing power for the second bridge. It's gaining strength. First bridge is looking strained. Second bridge is starting to form. The power draw is enormous! If the explosion happens now..."

With a violent flash, the powersupply overloaded. "Yes!" Malcolm cheered. "Both bridges have completely collapsed. The power supply is toast, but the rest of the equipment..."

A small explosion rocked the facility.

"...is toast too," Malcolm finished sadly.

"We'd be toast too if you hadn't kept working without me," Rodney told him. "Well done."

"Actually, I didn't think I could do it, but I had the feeling Bill would slap me if I stopped working," Malcolm admitted.

"What makes you think that?" Nye protested.

Rodney just shook his head at the pair. "Never mind, lets get out of here. It's warm outside, remember?"

"Best idea you've had all day," Jennifer kidded.

"First orgininal idea," Nye added.

"That's only because Rod thought of everything else I thought of!" Rodney argued. "Technically I thought of those ideas twice!"

"Rodney. Humble," Jennifer reminded him.

"Oh, right. Let's get out of here."


	6. Comfy

Chapter 6 - Comfy

Jennifer looked out the jet's window at the ground below. It wasn't often that she saw much of Earth, or any of Earth, for that matter. "That was really weird," she commented.

"And I thought it was strange the _first _time I met Rod," Rodney agreed.

"I meant Jen actually. And the whole 'Ashkelon' thing," Jennifer explained.

"Oh, right. That was far stranger than Rod, come to to think of it."

"It sure was! Rod's not really all that different to you, but... I know you've explained alternate universes to me before, but I never imagined a world where I didn't become a doctor... or one where I became a Goa'uld." She shuddered.

"Rod's still rather strange to me though - I never expected him to be carried to _Cadman_. But I never would have guessed that she's a doctor in another universe either."

"Oh well, it's all over now, and none of those realities matter," Jennifer declared. "No matter what other versions of us are like... this version of me loves this version of you." After waiting for Rodney's stunned look to diminish she continued, "I have for some time now. I just wanted you to know."

"I, uh... mmmph!" When Jennifer ended the unexpected kiss, all he could say was, "Wow!"

"So... this jet is rather comfy..."

The End!

-

(Unless enough people ask enough questions about details I think might be worth putting in an epilogue.)

I hope you enjoyed this little AU (and the alternate AUs that came with it...) :D

I've got plans for a post EaTG fic in the works...


End file.
